Graham boys shoot into semifinals

By Andrew Wilson / Times-News correspondent

Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 12:53 AM.

GRAHAM — Sometimes the third time’s the charm. The second-seeded Graham boys’ basketball team got an early scare from visiting Bartlett Yancey, but the Red Devils quickly recovered on their way to breezing past the seventh-seeded Buccaneers 84-58 to advance to the semifinals of the Mid-State 2-A Conference Tournament.

“We talked to the guys before the game about how we already beat them twice,” Graham coach Mike Williams said. “It’s hard to beat a team the third time. We warned them about that but our guys didn’t do anything until they actually got to see it with their own eyes.”

Though jumping out to a 16-9 lead with the clock winding down in the first quarter, Aquarius Barley and Bartlett Yancey (2-20) finished the quarter on an 8-0 run to take a one-point lead.

“We went a little slack in the first quarter,” Williams said. “We really didn’t come out with the intensity like I wanted us to.”

In the huddle between quarters, Williams said he forced “defensive intensity” into the minds of his players. Graham’s response was felt immediately on both sides.

“They amped up their defense a lot,” Bartlett Yancey coach John Mitchell said. “They forced us to throw some ill-advised passes and we turned it over a lot.”

Less than two minutes into the second quarter, Graham’s defense was swarming and it was leading to easy baskets in the other direction. Through the course of 56 seconds, Graham had forced three steals, drawn one charge, and converted all four turnovers into points. Antonio Turner was responsible for two of those baskets — an uncontested layup and a 3-pointer.

GRAHAM — Sometimes the third time’s the charm. The second-seeded Graham boys’ basketball team got an early scare from visiting Bartlett Yancey, but the Red Devils quickly recovered on their way to breezing past the seventh-seeded Buccaneers 84-58 to advance to the semifinals of the Mid-State 2-A Conference Tournament.

“We talked to the guys before the game about how we already beat them twice,” Graham coach Mike Williams said. “It’s hard to beat a team the third time. We warned them about that but our guys didn’t do anything until they actually got to see it with their own eyes.”

Though jumping out to a 16-9 lead with the clock winding down in the first quarter, Aquarius Barley and Bartlett Yancey (2-20) finished the quarter on an 8-0 run to take a one-point lead.

“We went a little slack in the first quarter,” Williams said. “We really didn’t come out with the intensity like I wanted us to.”

In the huddle between quarters, Williams said he forced “defensive intensity” into the minds of his players. Graham’s response was felt immediately on both sides.

“They amped up their defense a lot,” Bartlett Yancey coach John Mitchell said. “They forced us to throw some ill-advised passes and we turned it over a lot.”

Less than two minutes into the second quarter, Graham’s defense was swarming and it was leading to easy baskets in the other direction. Through the course of 56 seconds, Graham had forced three steals, drawn one charge, and converted all four turnovers into points. Antonio Turner was responsible for two of those baskets — an uncontested layup and a 3-pointer.

“Antonio hit three 3-pointers in that quarter. That sparked us,” Williams said. “That stretch was the turning point of the game.”

Through the second and third quarters, Bartlett Yancey matched its offensive output of the first quarter in being held to 17 points. While Graham (20-5) scored 16 in the first quarter, the Red Devils behind Turner and Kendall Patterson, struck for 52.

“We didn’t come out of the locker room as enthusiastic as we were supposed to,” Mitchell said of his team at the start of the second half. “We were already losing and we got outscored 27-8 in the third quarter. That’s the ballgame right there.”

With the game relatively in hand early in the third quarter, Williams and Graham started playing with defensive schemes for the future.

“We talked about changing some defenses and we did that in the second half a little bit,” Williams said. “We want to be able to do that more, but we haven’t been able to as much recently. But we changed up defenses and went to a zone press, a man-to-man, then to a halfcourt trap. We changed it up a lot because that’s something we’d like to do more of down the road.”

Turner, who scored all 11 of his points before halftime, said Thursday night’s semifinal game against third-seeded Eastern Randolph is going to bring a challenge.

“It feels really good knowing we’re on to the next round,” he said. “Now we have to go get ready for Thursday. … We’ve got a challenge.”

Patterson led all scorers with 16 points, 12 of them coming in the first half.

Barley scored eight points in the first quarter alone, but Graham clamped down on the forward for the remaining 24 minutes, only allowing him to score three more points. Brian Winn scored all eight of his points in the final four minutes of the game to finish as the Buccaneers’ second-leading scorer.

This season, Eastern Randolph split the series with the Red Devils. The Wildcats won the first matchup at home Jan. 23 before dropping round two at Graham on Feb. 12.

Williams said he knows how dangerous the Wildcats can be.

“They’ve been playing well,” he said. “They have a big guy and they’re real athletic. That’s something we have to contend with. We’re going to have to come ready to play.”